Wednesday, May 2, 2012

It's Working!

Here is the progress of Paxton and his cranial band. Pretty remarkable so far! Its inconveniences are completely made up for by its amazing power to shape. I am SOLD! Completely happy with our decision.

This was the best pre-band shot of the back of Paxton's head that I could find.
You can see that it's mostly flat with maybe an indentation at the base. The back of the head to the forehead slopes down. Above is the mold of his pre-banded head used to compare his progress at each subsequent visit. That little bump at the base of his head mold is actually a lymph node. Yea, it was THAT flat.

Day 6: The place where the back used to look indented now has a nice rounding. He remains high up top with a slope to the forehead. This amazing and beautiful bump in the back in just 6 days was thrilling!!!

Day 17. The bump on the back is becoming less distinct and more continuous with the back of his head. He is getting a nice rounding outward at the base, which is what future helmets (sporting and such) hook onto (thus important!). He's getting more of a forehead rather than the steep slope from back to front. You can't tell from the angle of this picture, but there is a slight imbalance between left and right that is leveling out as well.

Day 31. Despite having marked improvement, I feel discouraged a little by this picture. When you take the hair out of the equation (via stocking cap), it looks worse to me. But despite my feelings, our therapist says he is getting good growth up top and in the back - meaning he is getting rounder in the back and less sloped to the forehead. At this visit, she adjusted the band to allow for more growth at his forehead. When I was briefly studying how to draw faces many many years ago, I learned that the height of the forehead is equal to the distance from eyebrow to mouth. On Pax right now, it's about half that. It will be interesting to see how his face changes as this adjusts.
Next time I'll try to get a picture of his profile with the profile of the mold of his head at the beginning! That should be cool!

Day 45: Ok, this picture is not that great. Making a kid look one direction and stay still just isn't the easiest task ever. Hah! The most dramatic difference to me here from Day 31 to now 45 is the increased forehead height and decreased slope from the back of the head to front. It seems like the back came out a little more too.

Hehe! Hello there cutie who looked at the camera! This doesn't demonstrate anything except his adorable face in the stocking cap.

Week 13 (so approximately day 91): It's hard to tell with one side shot as the top view and front view say a lot as well. Paxton has made some significant progress over the last few weeks. He was growing slow for awhile there, but had a nice growth spurt recently. The back is really coming out nicely, and his forehead is also coming up, which helps relieve the sloping and make the back not appear so tall. It's looking beautiful. And good news! We have our graduation date. His last day in the band will be May 31st! Yippee! On that day they will do another 3D image and photos to show the change. I can't wait!

It's my goal to keep updating this post until we're done. Please bear with me as it reappears each time I update it. :)